Ixion's Wheel
by Poseidon's Daughter
Summary: Three times Yuna has been kissed.


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**Ixion's Wheel**

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Three times Yuna has been kissed. Three different occasions. Three vastly different circumstances. Three emotions.

Three men.

Three kisses.

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The first she wears as a badge of honor. She is not so naïve. She is not so pure. She is _right_. And to be _right_ Yuna is capable of being just as deceptive, just as deceitful as the next person. The dead must be Sent. That is _right_. So Yuna will swindle, Yuna will mislead, and Yuna will even dare to play at marriage.

Despite the fact that she keeps her lips obstinately still, despite the fact she is trembling in anger (anger, anger, surly it must be anger) – he dare threaten her guardians? Her friends? – his mouth is gentle over hers. Coaxing a reaction, hoping for a reaction, for acceptance. Soft and determined against her own. They are not so different, after all. They are half-breeds, the pair of them. Fifty-percent damned by default according to Yevon… and yet here they are, viewed as religious heroes. Viewed as pious. Viewed as brave.

A lonely boy the priests said he was. So maybe, Yuna admits, maybe some part of his affection for her is true. Maybe he wants it to be true. Maybe, maybe, maybe – but there are still guns pointed at her friends (she wipes her mouth of his kiss – of him) and Valfore is beating wings inside her skull and against her rib cage and then Yuna is _flying_, Sin and Seymour be _damned._

_

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_The second is her fairy tale. Her love story. Love kiss.

She hadn't seen it coming and, even so, had somehow known it was going to happen all along. That's how these things went, you see. And her heart quivers and her knees threaten to give out and he is warm where the water is cold and she falls into him – they fall into each other – and she is _home_. And maybe it is cliché, maybe it is sudden, maybe it is just one of those things that occur when two people travel together for extended periods of time.

But maybe – his mouth whispering incoherent apologies, hands tentative against her skin, and that _smile _he gives her when he pulls back only to return for more a second later – maybe Yuna doesn't _care_.

Because this is hers. This is her love story. Love kiss.

It is theirs. Tidus and Yuna. It is theirs. And it is **real**.

(Let them say he never existed, let them say he was never there at all, let them say what they would. Let them. Go ahead. Know only that it would be a lie of the grandest kind to say that he _never loved_. )

Love story, love kiss. Tidus. _Home_. The ache never goes away.

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The third she recoils from, shoving it in some deep corner of her mind – having every intention of forgetting. Good riddance to her brave words, to her pleas of Spira. Good riddance to her courage and iron will. Some friends _should_ be forgotten – some dreams should – sometimes and it…it just. It's just there. It just happened.

Happened in the Zanarkand dome. Happened after killing Yunalesca. After slaying hope –_ false_ hope. False, false hope. Sometimes she has to remind herself about that part. False hope. False, false hope.

Their procession towards the exit. The pyreflies still dance about them. Illusions still walk beside them. Yuna can see them and so it is only natural that she lingers. That she trails behind the rest. Illusion or no. False hope or no. _Her father is walking beside her,_ Yuna can _see him_ and she can see…

Both Aurons. He is there too. Fingertips beating out heartbeats against the wine jug at his side as he watches himself – old self, old two-eyed self – and Jecht and Braska.

It is still there. Even with false hope gone, it is still there. Her father, Auron's self-perceived failure playing back to them on a constant repeat:  
_  
Lord Braska, let us go back! I don't want to see you...die!_

_You knew this was to happen, my friend._

_Yes, but I...I cannot accept it._

_Auron-_

And again it repeats. And again. On and on. And they watch. For what else can they do? They watch.

_Lord Braska, let us go back! I don't want to see you...die!_

Yuna doesn't understand the look in Auron – real Auron's- eye. Which is because…and suddenly she _does _understand. It is because for once he is not Guardian. He is not Stoic. There is no mask. He is only Auron and heartbroken and –  
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You knew this was to happen, my friend._

She doesn't know why he does it. It just happens. Quick as lightening and yet so slowly deliberate that she has time enough feel the first flutters of panic creep up her neck. The arm that is not slung in the folds of his red coat catches her about the waist, pulling her up flush against his side.  
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Yes, but I...I cannot accept it._

And it is real Auron and old Auron metamorphosing before her eyes. Pyreflies gather and pyreflies drift away. Hybrid.

(His sunglasses have slid down his nose – there are no sunglasses – his collar hangs limp – there is no collar – he has aged ten years yet it seems much more – he is devastatingly young, he looks just as he did when Yuna was seven – and it switches – and it switches – and it switches- and it switches - and it switches -)

He is Guardian. He is Foster Father. He is Promise Kept. He is Father Friend. He is Auron.

"Auron."

_Auron-_

Her voice mixes and synces with her father's. For the first time Yuna hears the notes of Braska in her speech that others have claimed exist yet that she could never identify.

And Yevon forgive them for they know not what they do.

But it _breaks_ something in Auron. And he is kissing her. Guardian, Foster Father, Promise Kept, Father Friend.

Auron is kissing her. And unlike its predecessors this kiss is neither sweet nor gentle. It is pure force, pure impulse. A kind of madness maybe, madness with a gloved hand moving from her waist to her hair with the pyreflies and the voices (their voices, his voice, her father's voice, Jecht's voice) and visages running about – as unreal and as intangible as ghosts - he says something. Her name or a curse or both. Only she cannot hear him and _she cannot hear him_.

And this is not the kiss of an old man as Auron is not an old man – though it takes her longer still to realize this about him, it takes her until The End. That he is forever twenty-five. (Twenty-five and burning. Burning, burning, burning, like so much phoenix fire; like so much righteousness and broken faith.)

Her eyes are wide open, standing stock still. Her father is beside her as Guardian and Promise Kept forcibly rips Love Kiss and Honor Badge away from her, leaving only the imprint of _him_ and-

And with a dragging of teeth across her lower lip it is over.

And it is done. And it means nothing. He says nothing. And it just happened. It _just happened_.

(That night she buries her face in her bedroll and sobs. Her body arching, wracking shoulders quaking, in her attempts to keep silent. No one notices. Which inexplicably makes it better and worse. No one notices.)

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Three times Yuna has been kissed.

One by one, all three fall.

All are gone.

And three times over, Yuna wishes that kisses could bring back the dead.

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**Ixion's Wheel: End.**

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End file.
